Pick and choose

I have a hard time with the politicization of religious life.

My relationship with Jesus is my relationship with Jesus.  You don’t get to take that away from me, and I don’t want it used to sell me snake oil – or candidates.   That gets my back *right* up.

Plus, I don’t think it makes for good witness, to conflate conservative religious convictions with conservative political opinion.   “This person represents all of me” – HAH.  I think **not**.    I’m not going to follow in lock-step with … well, anyone.  Anyone but Christ and my husband, and I have to work at both of those.   Authority I haven’t voluntarily taken on?  Are you kidding me right now?  No.  The Republican party platform doesn’t cover every bit of me, thankyouverymuch.  (I would, for example, like Monsanto et al treated like public enemy #1, not given farm subsidies).

And I don’t want to argue politics WHILE I argue religion.  I can back Jesus up all day long, but don’t ask me to do it for Trump.   Or Reagan.    They’re not infallible.  And in the eternal-lens, not all that important.

So there is always the temptation to ignore politics and get back to my own things.   I would like that.  I would like to ignore politics excepting a few weeks before election day, to review data prior to voting.

But … our country feels like it’s in the throws of insanity.   You ignore politics for a year, and suddenly you can’t call a man a man without going to jail in some states or politely refuse to create art for a function you find abhorrent without being sued.    Through the looking glass is where we live.   Politics now serves to defend normalcy.

Or does it?   Are we as Christians just being used to push things we don’t care about by waving a carrot of things that we DO?   Call me cynical if you will – on the motivation of politicians, it’s an accurate description.

I feel that we, as citizens in a democratic republic, have a duty to at least vote.  It’s a power we’re given, and thus it’s a responsibility that has been thrust on us.

At the same time, white robes are being given out at an ever increasing rate.. I mean, we’ve all read the back of the Book, right?  We know how this ends up for us.   Things get horribly dark before the dawn.

I feel like there is a duty to stand, since I’ve been given that power, and yet I know the tide will eventually blow over my position.   Eventually, I’ll be a persona non grata.   My motivation for standing cannot, therefore, be winning the world’s game.   I would sit out, but … I don’t feel that I can.

But I DO feel that politics is the least important thing that I do.   That my witness is in my behavior, in my friendships, in my lifestyle, and in my evident enjoyment of my Lord.   It’s souls I want to win.

Thoughts?

 

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Light Shines Most Brightly Against the Darkness

My husband is very serious about having a dark sleeping space.   In our bedroom, we have wooden blinds inset in the window and allegedly light-proof curtains over it, which were then lined in blackout curtain material by yours truly.   When you walk into our bedroom after lights out – it’s BLACK.

But yet… after enough time to adjust, you notice the light coming in around the edges of the curtain and over the top.  There’s enough light moving around that you can tell when the security light out front is triggered – and enough light even at midnight to be visible.

First thing in the morning, if the curtain isn’t perfectly aligned, a ray of sunshine will work its way through that blockade and hit the armoire next to my head, and I’ll be able to see the dust motes dancing in the light.

Through blinds, curtains, and curtain-liner – the light finds its way.  And the smallest bit of light stands out against the darkness.

We are living in dark times.   So many of our sibs in the faith seem to think that the thing to do is to fade into the background and not shine.  But that’s the opposite of what we should be doing.   We’re supposed to shine harder because of the darkness.

It’s true.  Not all of us are as shiny as we ought to be – but great news, guys!  We’re not competing against an array of spotlights.    And as we allow ourselves to function as the lights that we are, we’ll grow brighter.

Shine on, folks – your efforts are meaningful, they are needed, and you DO make a difference.

Book Review: Placemaker

I saw that Magistra had been reading this book via Instagram, and as placemaking has a spot near to my heart, I grabbed myself a copy.   I was half-hoping for a book I might share with my mom, something I might re-read and find respite with.

It was a good book.   Purifoy writes in a wandering literary style that I’m familiar with via Robert MacFarlane, intertwining personal history with discussions of place.   Both of them have PhDs in literature – this must be the new way to write.   It was a pleasant book.   It was a book that referenced Purifoy’s faith in God and her belief in hospitality.

But this was not the book I hoped it would be.  Being me, I wanted this to be a book very specifically about how to placemake, what it means to make a place… that was not this book.  I wanted to hear about how God called her to make places, and I wanted essays about the specifics… I wanted to learn how to cultivate comfort, beauty, and peace.  More how, more what, even more why.  More Bible.   More teeth.

This book was about the love of places, and the love of making beautiful stops.  It was autobiographical.   It was a set of vignettes with placemaking as the common thread.   It was, as I said, an entirely pleasant read.

And there’s a good chance I might get a copy for my mom for Mother’s day.  It’s a nice book, for nice ladies who like to make places.  My mom is a wonderful gardener – her back yard is a slice of heaven, and I can’t remember a home we lived in where she didn’t plant a tree (even though all but this last home were rented).   I think she’ll find a kindred soul in Purifoy.

It just wasn’t the book that I wanted…..